Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney, most commonly known as Walt Disney, was a famous entrepreneur in the area of animation movies, being the founder of the Walt Disney Company, one of the biggest companies in the world, that influences and develops products in multiple areas.
Born on the 5th December 1901 in Chicago, in the United States of America, Walt Disney as always shown a strong interest towards the artistic field, being himself a very talented drawer. At the age of 18, Walt started his career as a professional cartoonist. In 1923, with only 22 years, the future entrepreneur moved to California, more precisely to Hollywood, where, together with bis brother Roy Disney, he founded the Disney Brothers Studio, which was exclusively dedicated to the production of animated movies. Two years later, Disney married Lillian Bounds, one of the first employees of his company, with whom he would stay until the rest of his life; the couple had two daughters, named Diane and Sharon.
Despite the rough early years, in a market that was in the beginning and in constant development, in 1928 Walt Disney achieved his first, and probably major success, with the creation of most famous mouse in the world, namely Mickey Mouse, that appeared for the first time in the movie “Steamboat Willie”, being this the first film with synchronized sound produced by Disney. The profits of this short movie were invested by Walt Disney and his brother in the company, and during the following years Disney created some new characters to accompany Mickey in his adventures, namely Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto and Minnie, among others. This group of characters is until this day one of the most well-known in the world, and they gave Walt Disney great recognition and commercial success, which allowed the company to grow stronger and become financially stable, which in turn made it possible for Disney to invest in bolder productions. In 1937, less than 10 years after the first presentation of Mickey to the world, Walt Disney is first animated long movie, in colors and with sound, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, a huge success in the entire world that granted Walt Disney his first Honorary Oscar. This was followed by many other successful movies, such as “Bambi”, “Fantasia”, “Pinocchio” or “Cinderella”.
In the beginning of the 50s, completely established both on artistic and financial levels, Walt Disney started one of his other dream projects, the construction of an amusement park entirely dedicated to the Disney world he had been creating during previous years, and in 1955 Disneyland was opened to the public, and become the first of a long list of amusement parks spread around the world, dedicated only to Disney movies and characters.
Besides animated movies, which were the main focus of Walt Disney, he also dedicated himself to the production of non-animated movies, but it was only in 1964 that he also achieved world recognition in this area, with the premiere of the famous “Mary Poppins”.
Walt Disney died in 1966, with only 65 years old, due to lung cancer. Throughout his career he won a total of 22 Oscars, and his contributions to the area of animated movies are unparalleled, being a strong influence until this day.
